Teens and Trucks: Educating Young Drivers
Safety Starts with Education
We are extremely proud to be able to partner with our clients in educating young drivers on the hazards of driving near large trucks. ProDrivers is taking the Teens & Trucks program into high schools all over the country to inform new drivers about the special precautions they must observe when sharing the road with big trucks.
During our Teens & Trucks events top professional truck drivers and safety professionals present life-saving highway driving tips to teen motorists.
According to Jim Smith, Director of Safety for ProDrivers, “Teens & Trucks is one of the best programs that we can present to young motorists. With increasing technology inside vehicles, teens are faced with more distractions than ever before. We are very proud to be able to be a part of such an important initiative that could save not only the lives of teens, but help reduce accidents overall. This information will help these kids and everyone involved to share the roads safely.”
ProDrivers is committed to Teens & Trucks because:
- 16-year-olds are more likely to be involved in single vehicle crashes, be responsible for the crash, be cited for speeding, and have more passengers than older drivers (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration).
- 35 percent of all truck-involved highway fatalities occur in a truck’s blind spots (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration).
- Up to 75 percent of all truck-involved fatalities are unintentionally initiated by car drivers (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety).
Following a classroom safety demonstration teens are given a chance to view from the truck driver’s perspective what it’s like to drive a large truck. They view safe merging and stopping distances, and learn up close and personal some of the differences between how cars and large trucks operate on the highways. The demonstration is designed to teach specific skills to young motorists in order to drive safely around other automobiles and around trucks and large commercial vehicles on the highways, and to arrive safely at their destinations.
